Interface News Reporter | Cheng Lu
On December 18, some media reported that Hema has been unable to activate or renew memberships recently. Hema’s manual customer service responded that starting from December 13, due to business adjustments, it will not support opening or renewing memberships for the time being. For MaX members, previously activated membership rights that have not expired can be used normally.
In this regard, someone close to Hema told Jiemian News that Hema is vigorously transforming itself into a discount store. After the prices of all products are reduced in the future, there will be no need to buy additional memberships to enjoy low prices.
Under the background that the entire retail e-commerce industry has previously launched paid membership, Hema Xiansheng also officially launched this business in 2019 - paid members can enjoy member-exclusive prices, milk stamps, meal tickets and other product rights, with an annual fee of 218 yuan/ Year. In the following years, Hema Xiansheng’s paid membership business made many adjustments, including increasing the price to 258 yuan/year, opening up with X members, and launching a diamond membership of 658 yuan/year, etc.
Currently, Hema’s paid membership can be used in Xiansheng stores and X member stores, but it is not applicable to the outlet format. The adjustment this time is the membership system of Hema Xiansheng format.
According to the above-mentioned person, since Hema launched the "discount" reform in October this year, many products have experienced a sharp drop in price, which conflicts with the original membership system's optimal position in the channel. Consumers can buy low prices without buying additional memberships, so adjustments have been made, but the X membership store format will not be affected.
In fact, Hema’s membership adjustments are traceable. At that time, the prices of more than 5,000 products in Hema Xiansheng offline stores were reduced across the board. However, because the offline exclusive prices and member discounts did not overlap, users complained that annual membership memberships were "taken advantage of", and some member discount prices were even lower than those online. The exclusive price is low and no refunds are available. At that time, Hema responded to Jiemian News and stated that indeed the "offline exclusive price" products were only available in stores, and the 12% off offline discount for diamond members could not be combined.
Regarding the choice of discount route, Hema CEO Hou Yi has publicly stated that it is a long-term battle: due to the slowdown in global economic growth and sluggish consumption after the epidemic, users' willingness to consume has significantly tightened, and retail companies need to adapt to the challenging changes. In this era, Hema must continue to learn and innovate in the competition. Self-reform refers to the discount reform centered on supply chain optimization to make products more price competitive.
After the transformation route is confirmed, Hema not only needs to reconstruct its own supply chain system, but also needs to make many changes in front-end store operations and even the retail and supply relationships in the industry. The adjustment of the membership system of fresh food stores is one of them.
However, according to Jiemian News, under the general trend of the industry developing membership stores, Hema X member stores will not be affected and still serve consumers above the middle class. However, Hema Xiansheng, as the main business format, has chosen to switch to "discounting" Cost effective route.
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